Abandonware DOS title

The best text-based games

In the past, lots of games used ASCII characters (text) to represent the game world. These text-only video games may seem primitive and outdated and, in fact, the genre almost died with the fast evolving graphics of modern games.
A few genres traditionally linked to the beautiful world of ascii characters still survives: roguelikes (nethack, angband, etc.) and interactive fiction, for example.

Most popular text-based games

Text-based games

  • qbasic71-01
    DOS19914.5/5 Microsoft
  • rawcopy-01
    DOS19924.5/5
  • starfleet2-krellan-01
    DOS19894.5/5 Interstel Corporation
  • borland-turbo-pascal-1-01
    DOS19834.4/5 Borland Software Corporation
  • alice-pascal-01
  • lha-1
    DOS19884.4/5
  • ibm-visicalc-1-01
    DOS1979freeware4.4/5 Software Arts
  • dos-navigator-1-01
    DOS1991freeware4.3/5
  • football-fanatic-05
    DOS1998freeware4.3/5
  • norton-editor2-01
    DOS19904.3/5 Peter Norton Computing
  • rogue-1
    Windows XP/98/95DOSLinuxMac19844.3/5 Artificial Intelligence Design

    Rogue is one of the first RPGs in the history of video gaming. It's a text-based dungeon crawler in which you have to fight your way in the dungeon to recover the Amulet of Yendor. Rogue became popular around 1980 on mainframes and later ported to various platforms, including DOS in 1984. Rogue is simply the father of all the roguelike games that c...

  • borland-c1-03
    DOS19874.3/5 Borland Software Corporation
  • crime-and-punishment-05
    DOS19844.3/5 Mindscape
  • gwbasic-03
    DOS19884.3/5 Microsoft
  • tomenet-04
    Windows XP/98/95Linux2003freeware4.3/5
  • sleuth-1
    DOS1983freeware4.2/5 Norland Software
  • arj-1
    DOS19904.2/5
  • nortoncommander-5
    DOS19984.2/5 Peter Norton Computing

    Norton Commander was one of the most popular file manager applications ever released for MS DOS. Its clever side-by-side windows interface and the ease of use allowed DOS users to copy, delete, move and preview any kind of file without the hassle of typing every command by hand. Norton Commander was first released in 1986, but the latest and final ...

  • castle-adventure-04
    DOS1984freeware4.2/5
  • wordstar4-01
    DOS19864.2/5 MicroPro International
  • zork2-2
    DOS19834.2/5 Infocom
  • slashem-vampire-03
    Windows XP/98/95Linux1997freeware4.2/5
  • zzt-2
    DOS1991freeware4.2/5 Epic MegaGames
  • dosbox-1
    Windows XP/98/95Linux2002freeware4.2/5
  • trinity-01
    DOS19864.2/5 Infocom
  • zork1-2
    DOS19824.2/5 Infocom

    Zork is one of the most popular text-adventures and one of the first interactive fiction games ever created. The first Zork was developed in the seventies and ported on various platform by Infocom in the early 80s. Infocom was one of the most prolific developers of text-adventures for home computers and created memorable interactive fiction ga...

  • thepatcher-1
    DOS19934.2/5
  • dragon-world-01
    DOS19844.2/5 Telarium
  • js-shogun-02
    DOS19894.2/5 Infocom
  • jewels-of-darkness-06
    DOS19864.2/5 Level 9 Computing